I'll make this short and sweet. One positive of this flick is Jackie Earle Haley's portrayal of Feddy Krueger. Although I never hoped nor expected that he would live up to Robert Englund's iconic dream-demon, he does a good job in both the current and flashback sequences.
Another positive is the choice of song for the end credits.
And that about sums up any redeeming qualities this "re-imagining" has. Topping the "negatives" list would be the rest of the cast, who are so bland and unlikeable that I felt a strong compulsion to get up and leave by the early funeral sequence, where our protagonists (such as they are) are speaking such unbelievably bad dialogue as to make Ed Wood look like William Shakespeare. Just another gang of Dawson's Creek clones(i.e., characters without character) that were so prominent in the post-'Scream' era, but seemed (thankfully) to have begun to disappear with some of Platinum Dunes other remakes of popular franchises like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Friday the 13th', and some of Rob Zombie's flicks. Please, please, please Dawson's Creek victims, GO AWAY.
Also boding negative, as others have mentioned, an overuse of CGI. There's a famous scene lifted from the original with the form of Freddy emerging from a wall just as a character is drifting off to sleep. In the original, done with latex and clever lighting, it looks fantastic. In this "updated" and "technically superior" variation, it looks like a goddamn cartoon... Flashback to 'The Frighteners'. Of course, one could make the case that the scene in the original in which Nancy's mom is pulled through a small window looks ridiculous, but the CGI updating here, which COULD have looked pretty damn cool with some prosthetics and and a little CGI thrown in, still looks pretty lame because producers just can't seem to see the value in prosthetics and MODERATE use of CGI.
Also, there's none of the exposition surrounding the mystery of dreams and the unconscious mind that the original utilized to such great advantage.
In short, this movie is awful and should not be seen by anyone. None of the teens cast in this movie should ever act again, and/or whoever wrote their dialogue and character development should never write again. But, in Platinum Dunes' favor, two out of three ain't bad... it's just that you wrecked the best of the three series you've remade so far.
Another positive is the choice of song for the end credits.
And that about sums up any redeeming qualities this "re-imagining" has. Topping the "negatives" list would be the rest of the cast, who are so bland and unlikeable that I felt a strong compulsion to get up and leave by the early funeral sequence, where our protagonists (such as they are) are speaking such unbelievably bad dialogue as to make Ed Wood look like William Shakespeare. Just another gang of Dawson's Creek clones(i.e., characters without character) that were so prominent in the post-'Scream' era, but seemed (thankfully) to have begun to disappear with some of Platinum Dunes other remakes of popular franchises like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Friday the 13th', and some of Rob Zombie's flicks. Please, please, please Dawson's Creek victims, GO AWAY.
Also boding negative, as others have mentioned, an overuse of CGI. There's a famous scene lifted from the original with the form of Freddy emerging from a wall just as a character is drifting off to sleep. In the original, done with latex and clever lighting, it looks fantastic. In this "updated" and "technically superior" variation, it looks like a goddamn cartoon... Flashback to 'The Frighteners'. Of course, one could make the case that the scene in the original in which Nancy's mom is pulled through a small window looks ridiculous, but the CGI updating here, which COULD have looked pretty damn cool with some prosthetics and and a little CGI thrown in, still looks pretty lame because producers just can't seem to see the value in prosthetics and MODERATE use of CGI.
Also, there's none of the exposition surrounding the mystery of dreams and the unconscious mind that the original utilized to such great advantage.
In short, this movie is awful and should not be seen by anyone. None of the teens cast in this movie should ever act again, and/or whoever wrote their dialogue and character development should never write again. But, in Platinum Dunes' favor, two out of three ain't bad... it's just that you wrecked the best of the three series you've remade so far.
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